Preview Of The $100 Laptop 304
cynical writes "Harvard's Ethan Zuckerman, founder of GeekCorps and Global Voices, got a chance last week to drop in on Nicholas Negroponte and get a preview of the $100 laptop Negroponte has designed for students in the developing world. Zuckerman talks about both its hardware and the One Laptop Per Child project, and asks the readers for suggestions for innovative ways the $100 laptop can be used." From the article: "The mockup I saw was about the size of a large paperback book. There's a stiff rubber gasket around the edge of the machine, which can double as a stand. The keyboard on the mockup was detachable, but will probably fold out on a hinge ... Two trackballs, surrounded by four way buttons, on each side of the screen act as controls, and function keys on the back act as additional buttons.)" We've previously reported on this device here on Slashdot.
Re:Why Not the US Too? (Score:2, Informative)
link /.'d full text here (Score:1, Informative)
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One Laptop Per Child - a Preview of the Hundred Dollar Laptop | Ethan Zuckerman
Unlocking the Code - Science, Systems and Technological Breakthroughs see all posts in this category
I took a day off from this year's Pop!Tech conference to hang out with some friends in Portland. But before driving from Camden to Portland, I dropped into the Opera House to check email and bumped into Nicholas Negroponte, who'd given a talk the day before on his work to produce a laptop that costs less than a hundred dollars.
(See previous discussion of the hundred dollar laptop here, here, and here, and posts about related projects here, here and here. -- Jamais)
Negroponte was an advisor to my previous project Geekcorps, and was extremely helpful to me as we figured out whether the organization would be supported by corporate sponsorship, foundations or government largesse. So he knows about my long-standing interest in technology in the developing world. He asked whether I was interested in coming over to the lab and seeing a demo of the machine, and talking about strategies for deployment.
Heck yeah!
The demo was yesterday afternoon, and while it didn't include a functioning prototype, I learned a great deal more about machine than I have from previous articles, or Negroponte's talk at Pop!Tech. He was able to answer a whole set of questions for me, and raise an entire set of new ones, which, I suspect, will take a number of years to answer accurately.
First, the name. I'd been calling the project the sub-hundred dollar laptop... the acronym of which is the unfortunate "SHiL". Negroponte's now calling the project OLPC - One Laptop Per Child. It does a better job of defining the project, I think - not taking the bottom out of the consumer laptop market, but providing a learning tool for students around the world.
On to the machine.
While the actual prototype is being actively banged on (in preparation for a live, but tethered, demo at WSIS on November 16th), Negroponte keeps a cardboard mockup of the machine on the conference table in his office. It's a clever little thing - I had a hard time putting it down after picking it up. You can see a design close to the prototype I saw on the front page of Design Continuum's site - they're evidently doing the case design for the machine... and, actually, pretty far from the design reported on in the AP story about the project.
The mockup I saw was about the size of a large paperback book. There's a stiff rubber gasket around the edge of the machine, which can double as a stand. The keyboard on the mockup was detachable, but will probably fold out on a hinge. The system is designed to work in three modes: laptop mode (screen up, keyboard down, handle behind as a stand); book mode (screen on the front, keyboard on the back, comfortable indentation for holding it in the left hand. Pressing on the keyboard "accordian-stype" - as Negroponte puts it - allows for page scrolling); and game mode (screen in the front, keyboard in the back, held sideways, like an oversized PSP. Two trackballs, surrounded by four way buttons, on each side of the screen act as controls, and function keys on the back act as additional buttons.)
Unlike in the prototype featured in the AP story, there's no large gap between the screen and battery section, designed as a handle. While it looked very cool, it was also a bit too fragile for the conditions being considered. The handle now is either the rubber gasket or the indentation in the back. I wonder if the hinges are going to be a problem - the current design requires a hinge for the gasket and a separate hinge that allows 340 degrees of freedom between the screen and
Re:Some things that the articles don't answer.... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Why Not the US Too? (Score:3, Informative)
I wonder, however, why he only plans to offer this device to the developing world (...)?"
There are two reasons the manufacturing cost is so low:
1- They'll be shipped to the receiving country as parts. 10 million motherboards, 10 million displays, etc. and assembled in-place using local labor. So the assembly costs are not only low -- they're providing jobs in the country of use. Which instantly supplies a labor pool to upgrade / repair the units.
2- The component suppliers are subsidizing the cost of the parts with profits made from developed countries. One condition of this arrangement is that the $100 laptops cannot be sold here and undercut the profits.
As much as I think it'd be cool to buy one for $300, the best way to help is to buy a shiny Opteron.
Rick
Re:$100 per child? (Score:5, Informative)
This laptop is being designed for folks for whom an information boom would be textbooks and teachers. It's being designed for folks who have a hard enough time putting food on the table and clothing on their backs without dropping two months' paycheck on a piece of electronics. In fact, design flaw #1 on this thing is that it is a piece of electronics.
A computer is a not a magic make-everything-better device.
Re:$100 per child? (Score:5, Informative)
While I want to agree with you, I also think that there are counter-examples that electronics are not only beneficial but the correct solution to information needs for the poor. For example, radio and telephone are electroics-based technologies, but are crucial and successful even in poor and low-tech areas.
A critical element of success is that the electronics be reliable and easy to operate. These I think are the big challenges for something like a laptop, not the fact that it's built out of electronic parts.
--Pat
Re:A laptop for the 3rd world maybe... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:$100 per child? (Score:2, Informative)